Official data from the 2020 Census has been released, detailing how communities across the United States have grown and demographically shifted. Lee County, Auburn and Opelika all showed significant growth over the past decade.
According to census data, Lee County’s population has grown from 140,247 people in 2010 to 174,241 people in 2020, a 24.2% increase. Of Lee County's population, 64.1% identified as White alone, while 22.7% identified as Black alone.
The City of Auburn saw a 42.6% increase in its population since census data was last collected, from 53,380 people to 76,143 people, making it the seventh-largest city in Alabama.
Among Alabama's 25 largest cities, Auburn grew at a faster rate than any other. Fairhope, the 26th largest, was the first on the list to outpace Auburn, growing by 47%.
Auburn Mayor Ron Anders said Auburn's exceptional growth was attributable to many factors, including Auburn's public school system, retirement culture and growing manufacturing sector.
"I believe people, when they see our community, they see a university community that has an unusual quality of life for the size community we have because the University has an activity level that you don't find in most small towns," Anders said. "The athletic programs that are going on at Auburn, the arts programs that go on at Auburn and just the general energy that comes from a college campus just makes living in a college town an exciting place to be."
Most of Auburn's growth, Anders said, was within its city limits, with idle property being converted into residences or businesses, rather than property being annexed into the city limits. The growth has come with challenges of its own, as infrastructure like roads see more use, which then requires more money to maintain.
Anders said it is difficult to gauge whether Auburn will maintain its rate of growth over the next 10 years, but the City is committed to still provide the best for its citizens, whether that is in public safety, parks and recreation, public schools or roads.
A group of almost 300 citizens called Auburn 2040 are meeting to plan for Auburn's future over the next 19 years.
"We expect our work to be a town of over 100,000 at that time," Anders said. "We're ... trying to get as far out in front of that as possible."
The City of Opelika saw a more modest 17.1% increase in its population, from 26,477 people to 30,995 people.
Both cities outpaced the growth of the state of Alabama as a whole, which saw a population increase of 5.1%, from 4,779,736 people to 5,024,279 people.
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Trice Brown, senior in english language arts education, is the multimedia editor of The Auburn Plainsman.
